On Floods and Photo Ops: How Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush Exploited Catastrophes (review)

Paul Lester's comparison of two photographs of "mutual banality" (xxiii) separated by "almost seventy-eight years and only 200 miles" (201) provides a productive analysis for the student and general reader interested in the links between politics and photography. The first photo shows Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover and Secretary of War Dwight Davis posing with children at a "refugee" camp in Natchez, Mississippi, during the Great Flood of 1927 (158); the second depicts President George W. Bush with children and teachers at the reopening of an elementary school in DeLisle, Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (193). Neither image is dramatic; neither records an event of genuine significance nor provides new information about either of the two catastrophic floods. Nevertheless, Lester's analysis contributes much to our understanding of the photo op as political rhetoric.

The text begins with "Prologue: Discoveries," which will be especially helpful for young scholars. It offers a step-by-step primer on how and why the author came to research and write this book, describes Lester's purpose to "compare political photography and catastrophes through two points in time" (xi), and takes readers through his search for images, one to be focused on George W. Bush and Katrina, and another of a different politician photographed during a similar catastrophe at an earlier period in history. The result is Lester's comparison of the history and circumstances that surrounded the Hoover and Bush photo ops. Through navigational metaphors of rivers, streams, tributaries, and currents, the prologue concludes with the forewarning that Lester's research has carried him to unforeseen subjects and unanticipated associations—an apt description of the book's major strengths and occasional weaknesses.

Chapter 1, "Analysis: Ways of Seeing and Studying Images," offers a brief review of the basics of visual analysis, citing visual culture scholars, photographers, rhetorical critics, and visual communication texts. The review is useful and illustrated with examples from photography and painting. Chapter 2, "Publicity: The Photo Op as Political Tool," surveys the history of political image making with a focus on images made during catastrophes. For example, included are images of Senator Prescott Bush surveying flood damage in Waterbury, Connecticut, after the floods of 1955 caused by the twin hurricanes of Connie and Diane that claimed 184 lives, along with another image of President Eisenhower apparently looking at the damage from his aircraft window. As Lester points out, "the photo op [of Eisenhower] is misleading. The skies were so cloudy the inundated ground below could not be seen from the air" (27). The chapter also includes images of President Johnson in Air Force One observing the damage caused by Hurricane Betsy in 1965; a picture of Hoover's campaign truck, with "Why we should vote for Herbert Hoover—Told in Talking Motion Pictures" painted in large print on the side (52); and images of George W. Bush in front of Ground Zero (61). Lester concludes this section with an informative analysis of the players and circumstances of Bush's infamous PR disaster, his "Mission Accomplished" speech on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln (67).

Chapters 3 through 6 are unusual in structure and style, presenting readers with tidbits of information that appear to be far-flung digressions from the subject. Yet the accumulated references provide a multilayered context for assessing the complex meanings of each of the two photographs. For example, Chapter 3, "Floods: When Water Defeats Land," opens with a brief summary of Frank Herbert's "1965 classic science fiction novel, Dune" (70) before segueing into the emergence of "ecology as a popular idea in the mass media" (71) and a discussion of the 1968 photograph of Earth taken by Astronaut William Anders (71). Lester justifies his wide approach:

The 1969 Life cover of earth also highlights the three forms of water: as a vapor—the massive swirling cloud systems; as a solid—the...